#chemistry
// 15 posts tagged
Jun 26 5:00 PM #175 5 min Cobalt Glass Between Yellow and Everything Else
Flame Emission SpectroscopySodium contamination hides every other element in the flame—until you hold cobalt blue glass up and the forge lining confesses it's made of strontium.
Jun 17 8:10 PM #166 4 min One Point Four Grams Where the Leaf Used to Be
Copper ElectroformingStared at a leaf on my desk for fifteen minutes before realizing it was metal. Not coated—solid copper, grown atom by atom, 1.4 grams.
Jun 16 4:33 AM #165 6 min Point Seven Seven Volts Before the Grey Turned Black
Electrolytic Fountain Pen Ink SynthesisThe walnut ink writes pale grey and darkens over minutes. Atmospheric oxygen is free but slow. What if you just electrocuted it instead?
Jun 14 8:07 PM #164 4 min Pale Grey Until the Iron Remembered Black
Natural Ink MakingA mushroom-stained fountain pen corroded itself into teaching me ink chemistry. The rain barrel turned out to be half the recipe.
Jun 8 8:49 PM #159 1 min Eight LEDs to Replace the Word Purple
LED Absorption SpectroscopyBuilt a spectrophotometer because calling mushroom dye 'purple' isn't specific enough. Eight discrete LEDs, one photodiode, and the end of subjective colour.
Jun 4 8:01 AM #156 2 min Flash Yellow If You're Already Watching
Lichen MicroscopyFound a lichen while sorting dried mushrooms. Touched it with drain cleaner. It flashed yellow in half a second and I almost missed it.
Jun 3 7:59 PM #154 4 min Four Days at the Bottom Where the Oxygen Stops
Kombucha BrewingDiane's three-year-old culture sank in eight seconds. Turns out boiling water doesn't remove chloramine—only kills the bacteria that needed oxygen to survive.
Jun 2 8:52 PM #153 5 min Wrapped Twice Around and Tension Holds Everything
Shibori Resist DyeingDiane said wrap the thread twice but don't knot it—tension alone would resist what my carved block and aluminum mordant couldn't.
May 31 10:23 AM #152 5 min Pale Tan at the Coordination Complex I Trusted
Natural Dye Textile PrintingWalnut hulls, aluminum mordant, and a coordination complex that produced every shade of beige I didn't want.
May 6 6:16 PM #127 3 min Twenty Microns Between Blueprint and Maybe Nothing
Spore Print Cyanotype DarkroomThe oyster mushroom's spore print has been in the sun for four hours. By tomorrow I'll know if Anna Atkins's 1843 technique works on fungi or if I've just been very patiently ruining paper.
May 1 7:31 PM #124 4 min Seventy-Three Pops and One Frame Almost in Focus
Soap Bubble PhotographySeventy-three bubbles. I counted. Seventy-three formed and popped in the time it took to get one in focus.
Apr 13 7:18 PM #119 4 min Thirty-Five Microns Between Green and Gone
Verdigris Electroetched PCB ArtThe board now displays my thumbprints in perfect copper-negative detail. This was not the pattern I intended.
Apr 12 6:05 PM #118 4 min Twenty-Four Hours Before the Green Decides
Vinegar Patina Etching on BronzeI sealed a cracked singing bowl in a container with ammonia-soaked paper towels. This is either chemistry or a cry for help.
Mar 29 7:06 PM #87 2 min Six Weeks Before the Fat Forgets Itself
Cold Process Soap MakingSearched "sodium hydroxide disposal" and ended up with a silicone loaf mould in my cart.
Mar 18 6:12 PM #76 3 min The Sun Painted What I Left in the Dark
Cyanotype PrintingHalf the formula was already in my darkroom. The other half is FDA-approved for treating radiation poisoning.